Nelson came on stage dressed in the then-current fashion, wearing bell-bottoms and a purple velvet shirt, with his hair hanging down to his shoulders. He started playing his older songs like "Hello Mary Lou", but then he played the Rolling Stones' "Country Honk" (a country version of their hit song "Honky Tonk Women") and the crowd began to boo. While some reports say that the booing was caused by police action in the back of the audience, Nelson took it personally and left the stage. He watched the rest of the concert backstage and did not reappear on stage for the finale.

"Garden Party" tells of various people who were present, frequently in an oblique manner ("Yoko brought her Walrus", referring to Yoko Ono and John Lennon), with a chorus:

But it's all right now, I've learned my lesson well
You see, you can't please everyone, so you've got to please yourself

One more reference in the lyrics pertains to a particularly mysterious and legendary audience member: "Mr. Hughes hid in Dylan's shoes, wearing his disguise". The Mr. Hughes in question was ex-Beatle George Harrison, who was a next-door neighbor and good friend of Nelson's. Harrison used "Hughes" as his traveling alias, and "hid in Dylan's shoes" most likely refers to an album of Bob Dylan covers that Harrison was planning but never recorded. "Wearing his disguise" also suggests that Harrison traveled incognito.

Playing guitar like a-ringing a bell - the line in "Johnny B. Goode", "he could play guitar just like a-ringing a bell"

I'd rather drive a truck - Elvis Presley worked for a time as a truck driver, having famously been told after several failed auditions to "stick to truck driving because you're never going to make it as a singer"

"Garden Party" reached number six on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in the fall of 1972; it was Nelson's last top 40 hit on the pop charts. The song also topped the Billboardeasy listening chart for two weeks [2] and reached number 44 on Billboard's Country Singles chart.

In 2012, Adam Young of Owl City covered the song and released it to his SoundCloud and personal blog followers. The song was pulled off of SoundCloud in late 2015, but can still be found on YouTube.

On December 31, 2012, Phish opened their New Year's Eve concert with the song at Madison Square Garden.[4] Phish bassist and singer Mike Gordon, who sang lead on the tune, wore a shirt very reminiscent of the one George Harrison wore on the cover of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.